Movie Details
| Title: | Monster House | |
| Director: | Gil Kenan | |
| Year: | 2006 | |
| Genre: | Animated | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 07.10.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- City of Ember
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 07.10.06 | Alamo South Lamar | Next up was Harry's AICN 10th Anniversary screening of Monster House in full-on awesomely digitally-projected 3D. I got to sit in the reserved section... I think it's the first time that's happened. I felt pretty cool about it, except for an equally special person was sitting right next to me getting hammered off her skull. She found every leaf with more than two dimensions absolutely hilarious. I can't fault her I guess... she was trying to be as quiet as she could... but you know, still distracting. That aside, the movie was actually a lot of fun. I don't know if it's ok for small children scary-wise, but for new adults wanting to be children again it works fine. It doesn't come right out and say it but the movie has a strong vibe that it's set in the 80s. ALl of the halloween decorations and video games and technology feels like it's coming out of the animators' (who are all probably around my age) nostalgia zone... so it all happens to be in my nostalgia-zone too... which is nice. It was funny, but also young adult-levels of scary (like maybe 8 and over, except Giovanni (the kid who stole Harry's thunder in his intro) who I'd say is ready to see Texas Chainsaw Massacre at age 6)... the motion capture is also pretty evident here. The actual character design is more stylized so everyone doesn't look like creepy dead versions of Tom Hanks, but the characters have a lot of physical mannerisms and motion that I bet would be pretty tough to do with just keyframe animation (especially the Chowder character. He has some basketball stuff that's pretty intricate as well as lots of arm and hand movement that feels actor-y, not animation-y to me). The 3D is pretty amazing... but that has just as much to do with the attention was paid to the shot composition as it does with the technology itself... In almost every shot there's always things happening in multiple levels of depth to keep your focus going back and forth. I was reminded a lot of the Dial M for Murder special features that I just watched where it shows how Hitch did the same thing... it's not blatant poke-you-in-the-eye stuff but when seen in 3 dimensions it really really works. Although I'd imagine this movie is pretty fun even in 2D. It's just better in 3. So that was a good time... |
